Lessons learnt from Katrina

lionnoisy SG

Natural disaster is like war----it come when you are not prepared well and not expecting it.
What lessons can we learn Katrina?

No.1 -----Listen to experts warning

"A catastrophic hurricane represents 10 or 15 atomic bombs in terms of the energy it releases," said Joseph Suhayda, a Louisiana State University engineer who is studying ways to limit hurricane damage in the New Orleans area. "Think about it. New York lost two big buildings. Multiply that by 10 or 20 or 30 in the area impacted and the people lost, and we know what could happen."
"The worst case is a hurricane moving in from due south of the city," said Suhayda, who has developed a computer simulation of the flooding from such a storm. On that track, winds on the outer edges of a huge storm system would be pushing water in Breton Sound and west of the Chandeleur Islands into the St. Bernard marshes and then Lake Pontchartrain for two days before landfall.
"Water is literally pumped into Lake Pontchartrain," Suhayda said. "It will try to flow through any gaps, and that means the Inner Harbor Navigation Canal (which is connected to Breton Sound by the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet) and the Chef Menteur and the Rigolets passes.

2.Listen to advices of an amateur weather enthusiast
(This guy is interviewed by Fox TV)

Evacuate
8/26/2005 11:22:00 PM EST (FRIDAY)
Posted by Brendan Loy

I'm not a meteorologist. I'm just an amateur weather enthusiast, a law-student blogger who happens to be a hurricane buff. But if I lived in New Orleans, I would definitely leave at this point. Tonight. Barring a major change in the forecast, I expect the evacuation orders to come tomorrow. That will produce massive traffic jams and general confusion. My advice? Beat the rush; get out now. For it is imperative to get out. Katrina probably won't destroy New Orleans -- but it could. So if anyone in New Orleans is reading this, I'd personally advise you to get the hell out of dodge.

3.Listen to US Army Crop of Engineers' pleadings

FY 2005 BUDGET/EFFORT. The Presidents budget for fiscal year 2005 was $3.9 million. Congress increased it to $5.5 million. This was insufficient to fund new construction contracts.......

FY 2006 BUDGET/EFFORT. The Presidents budget for fiscal year 2005 is $3.0 million. This will be insufficient to fund new construction contracts......

The current funding shortfalls in fiscal year 2005 and fiscal year 2006 will prevent the Corps from addressing these pressing needs.

4.Do not just read! Share your views here.There are too many wise readers here----just get the info and dunt share theirs!!What a shame!!

5."Human suffering incredible by modern standards"

8/28/2005 06:14:00 PM EST (SUNDAY)
Posted by Brendan Loy

URGENT - WEATHER MESSAGE
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NEW ORLEANS LA
413 PM CDT SUN AUG 28 2005

...EXTREMELY DANGEROUS HURRICANE KATRINA CONTINUES TO APPROACH THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER DELTA...
...DEVASTATING DAMAGE EXPECTED...

MOST OF THE AREA WILL BE UNINHABITABLE FOR WEEKS...PERHAPS LONGER. AT LEAST ONE HALF OF WELL CONSTRUCTED HOMES WILL HAVE ROOF AND WALL FAILURE. ALL GABLED ROOFS WILL FAIL...LEAVING THOSE HOMES SEVERELY DAMAGED OR DESTROYED.

THE MAJORITY OF INDUSTRIAL BUILDINGS WILL BECOME NON FUNCTIONAL. PARTIAL TO COMPLETE WALL AND ROOF FAILURE IS EXPECTED. ALL WOOD FRAMED LOW RISING APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL BE DESTROYED. CONCRETE BLOCK LOW RISE APARTMENTS WILL SUSTAIN MAJOR DAMAGE...INCLUDING SOME WALL AND ROOF FAILURE.

HIGH RISE OFFICE AND APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL SWAY DANGEROUSLY...A FEW TO THE POINT OF TOTAL COLLAPSE. ALL WINDOWS WILL BLOW OUT.

AIRBORNE DEBRIS WILL BE WIDESPREAD...AND MAY INCLUDE HEAVY ITEMS SUCH AS HOUSEHOLD APPLIANCES AND EVEN LIGHT VEHICLES. SPORT UTILITY VEHICLES AND LIGHT TRUCKS WILL BE MOVED. THE BLOWN DEBRIS WILL CREATE ADDITIONAL DESTRUCTION. PERSONS...PETS...AND LIVESTOCK EXPOSED TO THE WINDS WILL FACE CERTAIN DEATH IF STRUCK.

POWER OUTAGES WILL LAST FOR WEEKS...AS MOST POWER POLES WILL BE DOWN AND TRANSFORMERS DESTROYED. WATER SHORTAGES WILL MAKE HUMAN SUFFERING INCREDIBLE BY MODERN STANDARDS.

THE VAST MAJORITY OF NATIVE TREES WILL BE SNAPPED OR UPROOTED. ONLY THE HEARTIEST WILL REMAIN STANDING...BUT BE TOTALLY DEFOLIATED. FEW CROPS WILL REMAIN. LIVESTOCK LEFT EXPOSED TO THE WINDS WILL BE KILLED.

Times-Picayune ,New Orleans,29.09.2005 Monday.
''Superdome become last resort for thousands unable to leave.''

Bredon Loy on TV

lionnoisy SG

Never build a town /city below water level-----be it a sea,lake or river.

Lake Pontchartrain ,of 630 km2,is smaller than Singapore.

Most of the levees were constructed after 1965, when Hurricane Betsy left much of the city under the lake's waters for weeks.

details of NO,with satellite image before flooding

2.Three Duke University students drove from North Carolina and managed to make it into the heart of New Orleans to help victims (Sept 7)

lionnoisy SG

can any one tell me why US displaced peoples(its not polite to say they are refuges) need ice as important as water ans foods. fr Fr CNN news

So far, 16.4 million pounds of ice, 14.2 million quarts of water and 7.9 million ready-to-eat meals have been distributed, Mayeaux said.

lionnoisy SG

safe in Astrodome.Houston,5 Sept 2005

one of the best sources comes fr NY Times

The day by day section tell you the whole sequence of the storm and Government actions (or non actions each day)

lionnoisy SG

Pictures taken by US Air Force Reserve

the Bay Saint Louis Bridge (Hwy 90). I think that's Mallini Point beyond the wreckage (well, remains) of the bridge.

Speaking of "washed up there", the big thing with the blue roof sitting on Hwy 90 is the Floating Grand Casino. Check out the tennis courts beyond for a sense of scale.

Same thing here. It appears that everything below the line was pounded to matchsticks, while buildings above the line are, superficially at least, in decent condition.

lionnoisy SG

U.S. drops banning media from body hunt

CNN filed suit for access to search for New Orleans' dead,
Satturday, September 10, 2005
HOUSTON, Texas (CNN) -- Rather than fight a lawsuit by CNN, the federal government abandoned its effort Saturday to prevent the media from reporting on the recovery of the dead in New Orleans.

U.S. District Court Judge Keith Ellison issued a temporary restraining order Friday against a "zero access" policy announced earlier in the day by Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, who is overseeing the federal relief effort in the city, and Terry Ebbert, the city's homeland security director.

iveco SG

Originally posted by lionnoisy:

[b]Never build a town /city below water level-----be it a sea,lake or river.

Lake Pontchartrain ,of 630 km2,is smaller than Singapore.

details of NO,with satellite image before flooding

2.Three Duke University students drove from North Carolina and managed to make it into the heart of New Orleans to help victims (Sept 7)[/b]

Erm, many coastal settlements in Holland are below sea level. Perhaps you haven't heard the story of the boy who noticed the village dyke having a gap and the water seeping in. For that matter, he decided to plug the hole with his finger and stayed up all night in that position.

lionnoisy SG

A very good map ,go to September 08, 2005
They got there four days before the hurricane hit?
Canadians Arrived In New Orleans Five Days Before The U.S. Military

fr BBC

2.Death toll may be very high
Death caused by bursting of levees (dams) will be very high.The residents who chose not to leave most were poor ,sick or aged.The sudden of water rising gave them little time to escape nor prepare.This was not a flooding so simple.This was a small tsunmai,like a big fish tank in TSC burst....

3.Within minutes, it was waist deep.A resident,who stayed in a single story house,in Arts Street told her sad story.

On Monday morning, after the levees broke, the water came into the house, and instantly swamped the carpeted floors. Within minutes, it was waist deep.....

Tiffany,age 16, lost her cell phone trying to save a hamster and nearly drowned trying to save her cat in water that quickly swelled over her head. "It started coming up, faster and faster," she said.

]Temperatures climbed with the water level. On the first day, they watched the water reach the fifth ladder step from the top. On the second day, it lapped onto the attic floor.

Can anyone tell me what is the height of attic from ground floor?

4. How much water to be pumped out

These images suggest the quantity of floodwater in downtown New Orleans on 2 September was 95 billion litres (21bn gallons, 25bn US gallons), Hassan Mashriqui of the LSU Hurricane Center told the BBC News website.

That represents about 2% of the volume of the lake.

LAKE PONTCHARTRAIN
Mississippi alligator
1,632 sq km (630 sq miles) - second-largest US saltwater lake
Home to 125 aquatic species including anchovies and sharks
Named in 1699 after a French minister

lionnoisy SG

Hurricane simulation predicted 61,290 dead

By coincidence, they were working on a yearlong project to prepare federal and state officials for a Category 3 hurricane striking New Orleans.

Their fictitious storm eerily foreshadowed the havoc wrought by Category 4 Katrina a few days later, raising questions about whether government leaders did everything possible - as early as possible - to protect New Orleans residents from a well-documented threat.....

Written in ominous present-tense language, the report predicts that:

_Flood waters would surge over levees, creating "a catastrophic mass casualty/mass evacuation" and leaving drainage pumps crippled for up to six months. "It will take over one year to re-enter areas most heavily impacted," the report estimated.

_More than 600,000 houses and 6,000 businesses would be affected, more than two-thirds of them destroyed. Nearly a quarter-million children would be out of school. "All 40 medical facilities in the impacted area (are) isolated and useless," it says.

_Local officials would be quickly overwhelmed with the five-digit death toll, 187,862 people injured and 196,395 falling ill. A half million people would be homeless.

Federal support must be provided in a timely manner to save lives, prevent human suffering and mitigate severe damage," the report says. "This may require mobilizing and deploying assets before they are requested via normal (National Response Plan) protocols."

Pl note this is a Cat.3 hurricane predictions,Katrina is Cat. 5!!

|-|05| SG

I believe the ice might be for preservation of dead bodies?

lionnoisy SG

This will make u votmite bloods!!

A doctor reported that sick people languished in the New Orleans airport while he mopped floors.

But, the doctor told CNN, FEMA officials said they were worried about legal liability

"FEMA would not let the trucks unload," he told the newspaper. "The drivers were stuck for several days on the side of the road" because, he said, they did not have a "tasker number."

Firefighters who answered a nationwide call for help were sent to Atlanta for FEMA training sessions on community relations and sexual harassment. Pennsylvania firefighter Joseph Manning told The Dallas Morning News. "We didn't forget. We're stuck in Atlanta drinking beer."

Officials' Hungry for power,Only-I -can- decide attitude ,where-is -the -memo mind set etc made all the people suffer.US is obviously short of leaders.Why duny we send some to them ,fr Officer Cadets to Ministers

coffeeortea SG

very interesting articles, love watching the katrina channel whenever i run on the treadmill. don't even know where to begin

however, the hurricane watchers predicted that the hurricane would hit florida, which would not have as much effect as florida is well above sea level.. however, humans err.. and its not totally their fault as well. there might be cases of ignorance where the higher up officials refuse to heed the warnings of the hurricane watchers who state that there might be a possibility of the hurricane hitting louisiana.

lionnoisy SG

images of Katrina in US and PLA to the rescue of floodings.

fr murdoconline.net

archon1234 SG

The US command and control structure for responding to the hurricane is too decentralised. Our dear Mr Bush is too focus on his world peace effort, while his snetors are busy quarrelling over budget deflict. Worst of all, the army and the home guards are too busy over other projects.

There seems to be no cross functional team or cross ministrial team formed to co-ordinate this resuce and resettlement effort. In addition, there are delays and confusions in delivering the aids to the victims. Instead, it looks like the entire saga has fast becoming a finger pointing game.

There is also lack of a proper guideline to come out with a action plan and roadmap to help the city from recovering. The American public has been very willing to lend a helping hands to their fellow countrymen, but the officials seems to be too preoccupied with other tasks.

lionnoisy SG

Families urged to prepare for separation

Make sure people outside your immediate family have current pictures of your children, urged Ernie Allen, the president of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.

"Take digital photos of your children and e-mail it to friends and relatives so we can get photos," he said.

He also advised parents to make "a little, simple ID for your child" to keep with them. The information can include a basic list of distinguishing marks.

"So many children in this situation were not able to tell us or social services who they are and where they lived and what their mom's name was," Allen said.

"We recommend that parents take this seriously," he added.

Evacuations already are under way alon

u should take note of this ,just in case,in here or else where.